A blog from home

I wrote the following blog while I was at home in China:

It is always like that. Every time I come back to China, I have strange feelings, the feelings that have not blessed me for a long time. But all of a suddenly, I walked on the sidewalk, memory of a high school day would emerged, appearing more real than the current life I am living. I walk on the street, seeing the people around me, gray faces with rough skins on young persons like me. That could be me, I thought, that could be me.

That is the weirdest part. When I look at the people around me and my life behind me, I could no longer figure out how I get to the life I am in today. It is just so impossible that took myself by surprise, and I feel it very strongly when I am back. So many things to write about, not only about facts I see on the road, but about the feelings that swell my heart like a river run through a delta. With all the soil subsidies to the bottom, I hope I can still look at the water and see my reflection and tell myself, "I am still the person my folks have been knowing for a long time, with good heart and humble upbringing, patient and kind."

But who knows, every time I am back, it feels different, a difference that I cannot exactly describe with words, no matter spoken or written. Tomorrow I will meet a lot of high school friends, and I bet it will be very strange indeed. Sometimes you have to struggle to believe, with life so distant apart, is it still fair to call us friends, a perfect cover-up for a relationship that will go nowhere. Sigh, I do not know why I tend to be very sad when I am back. I think I am born to be pessimistic, but I have trained myself to be cheerful as a survival strategy. But when I am back, my guard is so low that it just gets the best of me.

I went to the nursing center to see my grandma today. She is very ill, but I am still happy to see her alive. I thought last time was indeed the last time, but I am lucky to see her one more time. She has been in the bed for over a year. When I walked to her bed, she could barely open her eyes. When she saw me, her eyes lit up with surprise, as if she were young all over again. The energy would not last long. She returned to her normal status and can barely think of something to talk about with me. I put my hand near her face, something that I always liked to do when I was a kid. She was just resting, and I was fighting away tears. I sit for about 20 minutes, asking stupid questions like, "how do you feel?" and "how is your life here" here and there, but mostly we were just silent. Her brain is all messed up, so she does not have very coherent thoughts. Throughout, she asked me one question, "do you come back one-person or two-person?" That made me want to cry… In the end, I stood up, and told her that I would be back the next day. I bent myself and kissed her on the cheek and then left.

When you grow older, life has become much more fragile. Every time I come back, I have heard of stories of people passing away due to various natural diseases or unnatural causes. Just think of 10 years ago, life is very hopeful for most of my classmates, now everyone has a very narrow goal to pursue, including myself, as if life is closing the doors it has opened when we were all students.